I'm anxiously awaiting when we get our 50-gal/day mandatory water rationing. We did that during the last really bad drought in 1976ish, IIRC. That was fun. Not. No flush-ie toilet, bathing every other day, no watering lawns...good times. Cannot WAIT for the screaming from the HOAs, though! Watching golf courses get brown & crunchy in the searing So Cal sun...

Of course, this could have been avoided decades ago, but why have thought for the morrow.

Oh, and in re this:

CipollinaFan:Maybe growing most of the nation's food in a desert was not such a good idea.

Most of the FOOD is not grown in a desert. Most of the LAWNS, however, are. Pro tip: You're not really supposed to have this many people south of the San Gabriel Mountains, but why plan for that either...

As a citizen of the country north of the USA, incidentally containing 20% of the world's fresh water and .5% of the world's population: every time I hear about another water shortage in our neighbours to the south, I get a tiny bit more nervous.

This shiat only seems to be getting worse. People will biatch and moan and make-do over super-expensive or no oil. They may get shooty if you do the same with water.

I'm anxiously awaiting when we get our 50-gal/day mandatory water rationing. We did that during the last really bad drought in 1976ish, IIRC. That was fun. Not. No flush-ie toilet, bathing every other day, no watering lawns...good times. Cannot WAIT for the screaming from the HOAs, though! Watching golf courses get brown & crunchy in the searing So Cal sun...

Of course, this could have been avoided decades ago, but why have thought for the morrow.

Oh, and in re this: CipollinaFan: Maybe growing most of the nation's food in a desert was not such a good idea.

Most of the FOOD is not grown in a desert. Most of the LAWNS, however, are. Pro tip: You're not really supposed to have this many people south of the San Gabriel Mountains, but why plan for that either...

Most of the pools and golf courses are in the f*cking desert, too

/we'll send the Delta south when the pools are drained and the golf courses are xeriscaped

Nexzus:As a citizen of the country north of the USA, incidentally containing 20% of the world's fresh water and .5% of the world's population: every time I hear about another water shortage in our neighbours to the south, I get a tiny bit more nervous.

This shiat only seems to be getting worse. People will biatch and moan and make-do over super-expensive or no oil. They may get shooty if you do the same with water.

I find it kinda funny (funny "duh" not funny "ha-ha") when people start mumbling about getting water from the Great Lakes.

Ever look at the Great Lakes watershed? Most of it is in Canada. That's Canadian water.

JonBuck:They can't build this desalination plant fast enough. Won't be running for a couple years.

IT'S ABOUT GODDAMNED TIME

/FFS, I've been saying for YEARS this was what we needed to do//and when we had a working nuke powerplant on the coast, we could have built one next door and had the power required right there///But NOOOoooooo...

Monkeyfark Ridiculous:"Farmers pumped out the groundwater long ago, and massive state and federal water projects keep agriculture going in a place that has otherwise turned to arid and chemical-soaked fields of death."

I'm not 100% convinced that anyone should be sending their water to support agriculture in the arid chemical-soaked fields of death of farmers who long ago destroyed their own water supply.

Yeah, blame it on the farmers. It's all their fault that everyone wanted to eat food on the cheap, just like it's the miners in Appalachia's fault everyone wanted power on the cheap.

You might put some blame on the agribusinesses who run the farms, sparky. The FARMERS knew a few decades ago it was insanity to keep pouring water on the fields--but the agribusinesses needed those rich, creamy water subsidies, which made it more cost-effective to keep dumping water all over the place rather than switching over to less wasteful drip-irrigation systems.

Anyway, most of the extraneous water loss isn't due to agriculture, which is extremely necessary. It's due to the bullshiat big cities like the one I live in, with its nice green lawns, nice green golf courses and parks, and water-wasting fountains, air-chilling plants and leaky infrastructure that drips water all over the desert south of Bakersfield.

I wonder how much water would be saved if we banned lawns--and ONLY lawns--in So Cal. I bet it would be a lot.

fracking in california is done differently than elsewhere (vertically, not horizontally), so that each well will use a fraction of what it takes to fill an olympic-sized swimming pool or what a single golf course uses, every day

MaudlinMutantMollusk:JonBuck: They can't build this desalination plant fast enough. Won't be running for a couple years.

IT'S ABOUT GODDAMNED TIME

/FFS, I've been saying for YEARS this was what we needed to do//and when we had a working nuke powerplant on the coast, we could have built one next door and had the power required right there///But NOOOoooooo...

All the other farmers said I was daft to sow my crops in the desert, but I sowed them anyway just to show them!. They dried up. So I sowed a second crop, they dried up too. So I sowed a third crop, they burned down, fell over and then dried up. But the fourth one took.

Gyrfalcon:Anyway, most of the extraneous water loss isn't due to agriculture, which is extremely necessary. It's due to the bullshiat big cities like the one I live in, with its nice green lawns, nice green golf courses and parks, and water-wasting fountains, air-chilling plants and leaky infrastructure that drips water all over the desert south of Bakersfield.

I wonder how much water would be saved if we banned lawns--and ONLY lawns--in So Cal. I bet it would be a lot.

True, I thought Albuquerque and some of those type places were prettier with the desert plantings than LA

Gyrfalcon:MaudlinMutantMollusk: JonBuck: They can't build this desalination plant fast enough. Won't be running for a couple years.

IT'S ABOUT GODDAMNED TIME

/FFS, I've been saying for YEARS this was what we needed to do//and when we had a working nuke powerplant on the coast, we could have built one next door and had the power required right there///But NOOOoooooo...

Nuclear power is bad. It might explode.

Well, that's kinda remote

/but they can go all glowy, gamma ray, neutron sh*t crazy and do nasty things to lizards and various already weird sea critters//I seen that on tv